


When It Happens

by self_indulgent_authorship



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: (eventually) - Freeform, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Deviant Upgraded Connor | RK900, I Don't Even Know, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, M/M, but oh well, even when it really seems like i will i just can't kill my boi, some moody angsty shit, this is kinda shit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-07
Updated: 2019-08-07
Packaged: 2020-07-27 19:01:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,319
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20050984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/self_indulgent_authorship/pseuds/self_indulgent_authorship
Summary: When it happens, he doesn’t expect it.





	When It Happens

**Author's Note:**

> Look, even I don’t know where this came from, okay? I’m pretty sure a fanfic demon possessed me and made me write this. At least that’s my excuse. Because this is soooo not what I usually write, but here we are. Just some weird, moody, angsty soulmate shit that I wrote in a frenzy at 3AM. Maybe i'll go back one day and edit it, but we'll see.
> 
> Enjoy?

When it happens, he doesn’t expect it. But how could he, really? All his life, his short,  _ stupid, wasteful  _ life, he has been told time and time again that a thing like this  _ wouldn’t  _ happen. The words might not have been explicitly said, because so few are graced to his ears these days, but he knows the facts all the same. He knows what he is, and he knows what he is not. 

Some say it’s like seeing color for the first time, the world alight in pigments your mind couldn’t imagine until it saw them. Some say it feels like fireworks dancing on your skin, exploding where the touch of them marked you. Some say it feels like a pull, dragging you toward this person you do not yet know. Some keep it simple, and say that something snapped into place, something clicked and the world made sense as you looked at them. 

Some craft elaborate tales spun around the idea of it, the way to identify it, the way it feels. Pages and pages, thousands of words poured onto the page, or typed frantically in the darkness, eyes wide and heart pounding as they try to capture just what it felt like, to share with the thousands of others desperate for a glimpse at this rare, beautiful, terrifying thing. They write and read and watch as endless pair after pair discovers it in a thousand different ways, as fireworks boom while two share a kiss, or color explodes as two lock eyes, or script scrawls across wrists, sometimes names or first words or simple clues. 

However they tell their story, whatever it feels, looks, or even tastes like, it almost always holds one thing true. The two, whoever they are, wherever they are,  _ what _ ever they are, they will find each other somehow. They’ll see color, or they’ll feel electricity from a touch, or they’ll hear the words they’ve been waiting to hear. They almost always meet, even if things don’t end up how they imagined they would. Even if the meeting ends in bloodshed, even if they don’t realize until days, weeks,  _ years _ later, there is always a meeting.

Given that, perhaps he should have expected this to happen someday...but how could he? How could he expect a moment like that, for him? This was fantasy, saved for those who had the proper makeup to write such stories, to indulge in these fantasies over and over. 

One had to have a soul to have a soulmate, after all.

His lack thereof made his existence meaningless. There was no reason to go against the orders constantly streaming in, to doubt the authority of the ones pointing him in either direction. He was nothing but a drone, a pawn, a useful clone of an inimitable reality. He looked human, save a few features, but surpassed them in what they had foolishly deemed the most important respects. Faster, stronger, smarter. 

More deadly. 

There were thousands of ways to kill programmed into his preconstructions. He could take down a room of twenty human operatives in less than three minutes, unarmed. Given a weapon, that time was halved. He could break a neck with less than twelve percent of the strength given to him, could disassemble an android before they even had time to process he was really there. No human stood a chance against him, no android could last longer than a few minutes, if he was told to deactivate them. 

Well. No android but one. 

The androids he had been disposing of in weeks previous were merely tests, scraps delivered to his door while the humans tried to track down the one they really wanted him to elimate. He ended their lives quickly, having no desire for pleading and no patience for idle chatter. There was nothing to learn from them, no real reason they had to die, but there was no reason for him to stop either. 

There was no reason for anything, really. So he followed their orders, and killed their enemies, and slowly chipped away at a revolution hard won. Because it didn’t matter. What was the point of believing in this life some said he had, when he knew such things were lies? Androids did not have souls. They were activated and deactivated, blink and you miss it lives that ended with nothing. 

Absence. That was what a good deal of his existence felt like. A hollow pit, somewhere in his chest, growing and eating him from the inside. He feels nothing. He thinks nothing. He  _ is  _ nothing, taking orders from those who are something, feel something, have something, someone. He has none of that, is none of that. 

So of course, when it happens, he does not expect it. They have been fighting for so long when it does happen that he wonders how he has not felt it until then. Blow after blow, contact after contact, and nothing had penetrated his carefully crafted facade of emptiness. They fight, longer than he has ever fought anything—android or human—trading blows of good standing, though he is slowly winning and they both know it. He can tell by the way they are dancing further into the warehouse, until they are cornered, fighting in close quarters as his target gets increasingly desperate. 

He lands a hard blow to the android’s face, and watches as the figure careens backward, landing sprawled on the floor in a heap. For several seconds, he stands still, watching as his target struggles to come back to his feet. Moonlight is streaming through the warehouse’s dirt covered windows, painting the dingy room pale white. 

It is then that it happens, as the android turns on the ground to try to pull himself back up. As the light hits his identical face, he catches his eye and goes dead still. He stops trying to stand up, dropping down a little and cocking his head just a touch to the side, dazed dark eyes struggling to focus and LED stuttering between red and yellow. Their eyes meet, and that is when it happens. 

It is not fireworks. It is not color. It is not a pull, or words, or phantom feeling on his skin. If anything, it is the ground tipping out from underneath him, it is the darkness swallowing him whole, it is an explosion of unwanted  _ horror _ and  _ fear,  _ seizing his limbs and grinding his processors to a halt. There is no happiness in this moment, no relief, no click of  _ something  _ into place, beyond the thought of  _ not him. _

The android on the ground—whose name he was never even given, whose dark brown eyes are clouded in confusion and malfunctioning so strongly he cannot track his face anymore, whose face is covered in thirium, plastic visible where his artificial skin has failed, who no longer has the strength to stand—stares up at him, breathing hard in gasping desperation, trembling and bleeding onto the dirty ground. He won’t break their eye contact, and his systems have begun to fail, and they are both frozen, staring at each other as a few seconds pass. 

Then the android gives a dazed sort of smile, and there is blue blood on his teeth and dripping out of his mouth, dribbling onto his already ruined jacket. But he doesn’t care, clearly, because he lurches forward in some feeble attempt to get closer, hand clawing at air before barely managing to hold himself up long enough to choke out two words. 

“It’s you,” he says softly, his voice almost slurring and hardly more than a whisper, but it shatters the air in the warehouse into a million tiny pieces. 

And then the android slumps backward, and suddenly he is moving without thought, catching him before his head can hit the ground and pulling him into his lap with rigid movements. The android follows, limp and heavy in his hold, but that bleary smile still on his damaged and bloody face. The android’s eyes are unfocused, and his LED is fighting to be blue, flickering between that and a terrifying shade of red, but he barely notices it, because he can only stare, the pit in his chest growing by the second and freezing him because he  _ doesn’t know what to do.  _ For all the claims of his superiority, he knows nothing of repair, nothing that can save such extensive damage. They have been fighting too long, he has taken too much damage from time spent on the run, and from  _ him.  _

“You,” the android mumbles brokenly, and he’s reaching up with a violently trembling, bloody hand, resting it on his cheek and smiling impossibly bigger, even as his breathing hitches and stutters. “F-Foun’ you...you...h-here...”

He can’t find the words to reply. His voice seems to be gone. All he can do is cling to this android, this android who is dying, who he has  _ killed,  _ all he can do is hold tightly to him and stare. 

The android hums quietly, seemingly unbothered, trailing his hand down to catch one of his, pulling the skin back and requesting to interface. He doesn’t understand, but he accepts the request anyway, because there’s too much hope still present in those eyes, too bright a smile for one who is dying at the hands of the one who they were meant to love. 

He sees it all. The investigations, the older human, the revolution, the turmoil, the conflict, the  _ fear,  _ but also the empathy, the careful dodging of orders, the saving of so many lives. And the pit in his stomach grows. This android is too good for all that’s been done to him, all that  _ he’s  _ done to him, he deserves infinitely more than he has gotten, or will get. The pain that discovery causes him is almost too much to bear, and he wants nothing more than to bury his head in this android’s shoulder and beg forgiveness. 

The android must surely see all of his memories, too, but that only makes it unbearably worse. He will know what he has done, the things he has thought, the people he has killed. The nothingness that surrounds him, the apathy for all of them, the complete lack of life in him, the sheer number of lives he has wasted, ended so bluntly and with so little  _ reason— _

He expects the android to pull away, for disgust or scorn to burn across their connection, scalding him until the only thing he knows is the rawness left behind by the imminent rejection. He waits for it, clinging to these few moments of contact he has and readying himself for when the android will realize just what he is, and jerk away from him. 

But he doesn’t. He doesn’t pull away. If anything (and he might be imagining it) the android holds tighter to his hand, even though it’s slippery with his thirium, and he has every right to push him away, to spend his final moments in anger, in disgust, in regret. But he doesn’t. No, because this android, this  _ foolish  _ android was still staring up at him with that faint smile on his face, maybe a tint of sadness in his eyes, but no regret or anger. 

“O...kay...” he says, and then pauses, screwing his eyes shut with a poorly masked grimace. When he speaks again, his voice is lower, more stilted. “N-not...s’not your...faul’...”

Not his—he opens his mouth as if to reply, but the android flinches, hard, and he falls silent as he holds tighter to him, thinking  _ no, not now, not now. _ But he opens his eyes again, tears streaming down his face, further aggravating his already blurry sight. It takes him a few seconds to focus on his face again, and he is shaking harder, tremors wracking his battered body no matter how fiercely he holds onto him. He feels his hand tighten on his again, fingers jittering out of his control, but refusing to let go. 

“Sh-should hav’ b-been...f-fas...ter...” he goes on softly, sounding almost forlorn, but far from bitter, or even afraid. His imminent death doesn’t seem to phase him at all. “S’posed to...fin’ y-you...help...you...’scape them. Keep...safe...not l-like...me...”

“Find me?” he mumbles in a cracked, shattered voice, and he hardly realizes he’s spoken, he’s so lost in his eyes and the mystery of what he’s saying that he can’t focus on anything else. “You were trying to find  _ me?” _

But the android’s smile has returned, and he reaches up again, brushing his bloody fingers over his cheek. “F-foun’ you,” he mumbles again, static creeping into his words and breaking his voice apart. “Or...y-you f-foun’...me.”

He drops his hand, nodding a little to himself and taking a shaking breath. “You’re saf-fe...now...f-f-free,” he says quietly, in a tone that suggests relief, finality. He meets his eyes. “F-fin’...M-Markus...he’ll...keep y’safe...”

_ “No,”  _ he says forcefully without really meaning to, and he gives into the urge to pull this android impossibly closer, cradling him close and shaking his head. He feels hands bury into the fabric of his jacket, but the only thing he can focus on is the fact that he can’t  _ breathe,  _ and he has to do something, he has to— “No, no, you can’t—I have to—”

The android hushes him weakly as he keeps him painfully close, his hold unyielding and desperate. “Not...your faul’...” he repeats in a broken, wavering tone. He tucks his head into the crook of his shoulder and keeps whispering, even though time is running out, and he should be saving power if he wants any chance to live. “D-didn’...know...th-they... _ lie.  _ Alw-ways l-l-lie. M-m-made...y-you...hurt...p-people—”

“I could have stopped, I—I should have—”

“D-did...s-st-top...” he mumbles, and his voice is too soft, he’s too quiet. “S’ok-kay...”

“No, no, I’ve—you—” he cuts off sharply, the fear overwhelming, and his voice shakes too now, out of his control. “Don’t go, please don’t—”

The android grimaces again, flinching and going still, and for a moment, he panics, and the world dies, and he’s alone. But—he can feel him breathing, can feel his shaking breath on his neck even as the seconds of silence drag on. 

“N-not...goin’...” he says, and there’s determination in his voice, a stubbornness that seems to go with his tightening grip on him. “S-staying...s-s-stay...w-with m-m-me...?”

“I—yes, yes, I’m staying.”

He doesn’t know what to do, but he stands, pulling the android up and into his arms, because he has to do  _ something,  _ something besides sitting here, useless. There isn’t time, they’re too far away, but he has to  _ try.  _ The android is boneless in his hold, except for his hands, clinging to his jacket and trembling, hiding his face from the too bright moonlight. 

“C-Con...nor,” he stutters after a few minutes of running, and he looks down quickly to find those tired eyes watching him sadly. He grinds to a halt, and they stare at each other in confusion. “M-my...n-n-name. Y-y-you...?”

He stares, and something breaks in his chest. “I don’t—” he cuts off, and he has never stumbled in speech as much as he does now, looking at this android, at  _ Connor.  _ “They didn’t give me a name,” he finishes quietly, looking away because they have to keep moving, have to reach somewhere they can fix Connor before—

He misses the frown that twists Connor’s expression, the deepening sadness there, but he feels him hold tighter for a second. “Y-y-you’re...RK...900,” he slurs, pausing to collect himself. “S-so...N-N-Ni-Nines...?”

He fights the urge to stop once again, and instead quickens his pace. “Okay,” he says instead, quietly, holding tighter to him. 

Connor smiles dazedly, and his LED flickers to blue for a moment before falling back to red. “G-glad...I m-m-met...y-y-you...N-Ni-Nines...” he mumbles, clenching his fingers in his jacket. “Th-th-thought I-I...w-w-was g-goin’...d-die b-b-b-bef-fore—”

“Don’t say that,” Nines says desperately, shaking his head and looking around the deserted streets, trying to come up with a plan. “I can—I can still—”

“S’too...l-l-late,” Connor whispers, and their eyes meet again. “W-was...in b-b-bad sh-shape...w-w-when y-you...f-foun’ m-me. N-n-no’ y-y-your...f-faul’...”

“How can you say that?” he asks, practically begs, so confused. “I’ve—I’ve killed you, I—”

_ “No,”  _ Connor cuts him off sharply, reaching up again and forcing him to meet his gaze. “No, n-no. Th- _ they... _ d-d-did th-this...n-n-not...y-y-you. Th-th-they  _ l-l-lied... _ t-t’you. S’why...y-you...n-n-not b’c-cause...w-wan’ed t-to...c-cause o-of...th-them.”

His hand is shaking terribly where it holds him in place, and the spinning of his LED is only slowing, but Connor still looks so  _ sure  _ that he finds no words to tell him he’s wrong. 

He still feels he has to keep moving, has to run, to try to find somewhere they can fix Connor, but—but he knows that there isn’t anywhere nearby. They are too far away. They’re in the middle of nowhere. There’s no one nearby, and he is nowhere near skilled enough to repair him the way he needs to be. Connor is going to die here, on this deserted street, and there is nothing he can do about it. 

Unless. 

_ Unless.  _

“W-w-what’re y-you...” then he realizes, and he’s fighting, weakly. “N-no—n-n-n- _ no—” _

“Stop moving, let me—”

“N-no! Y-y-you...c-can’t—”

“This is the only way!”

Connor shakes his head, trying to push his hand away, but he doesn’t have the strength to. “N-no...’m n-n-not...w-worth it—y-you—”

He goes still, for just long enough to meet Connor’s frantic gaze. “Not  _ worth it?”  _ he repeats blankly. “Not— _ Connor.” _

“You c-can’t...n-n-not...f-for m-m-me.”

“What else is there for me to do? I can’t let you die. I  _ won’t.” _

“W-w-won’t...l-let you...either.”

“I have a much higher chance of survival than you do,” he tries instead, desperation coming into his voice as precious seconds ticked by, wasted. He holds tighter to Connor, panicking.  _ “Please.  _ Please, let me do this. I...I won’t be able to live with myself if I don’t. I have to  _ do something.” _

Still, Connor stares at him, trembling and losing power by the second, but the stubbornness remaining in his eyes. But after a few seconds, he must understand, because he nods quickly, shutting his eyes and turning his face away, as if he can’t bear the thought of it at all, even after he’s agreed.

Relief washes over Nines like a drink of water to a dying man, and he’s moving within a fraction of a second. They drop to the ground, and he gently sets Connor down, looking him over quickly. He has scanned Connor more times than he could count, he knows what components he needs in order to boost his survival time—just long enough to reach some sanctuary, somewhere the rest of the damage—the damage  _ he has done— _ can be mended. So he removes those biocomponents, and replaces them with his own, hardly flinching, even as warnings begin to fill his vision. 

He doesn’t care about the warnings. All he cares about is that the timer to Connor’s shutdown has extended by nearly an hour, and he can feel Connor holding tighter to him, now that he is able to. And when Connor speaks again, his voice is not as broken and full of feedback as it was just moments ago.

“If you die...” he says in a half whisper, and trails off, swallowing hard and clinging tighter. “Don’t die. You can’t. I’ve only just found you...”

“I’m not going to die...and neither are you,” Nines replies. 

And he lifts Connor into his arms again, and takes off running once more, broken biocomponents and a puddle of blue blood the only sign that the pair had ever been there.


End file.
